Beloved - A Gut Wrenching Classic

This year I have set myself the challenge to read 52 books in 2022 or one book a week. This is a decent challenge but I am very excited about it!

Number 3 of 2022 was Beloved by Tony Morrison.

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Toni Morrison

You may have heard of the writer, Toni Morrison. She won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1993 and also wrote Song of Salomon. She was an editor before but decided she wanted to focus on writing and wanted to be able to write on slavery, a story near to her that she did not feel as free to focus all her energy on when she was still an editor.

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Beloved

Morrison came with the inspiration for the novel when she read the story of Margaret Garner, a former slave who was hunted down by her slave owners and killed her 2 year old daughter so they couldn't capture her. Morrison wondered what that is like: wanting to protect your child from slavery so bad that you would rather kill her.

In the novel we follow Sethe, who has escaped her slave existence and has fled to Ohio with her daughter Denver and her mother in-law Baby Suggs. All but her daughter Beloved, who instead inhabits the house as a ghost. All inhabitants of the house suffer from their past, but also struggle with the present. It becomes a harrowing tale of how trauma doesn't end when one leaves, but how it follows your entire life. When Paul D, also a former slave at the same plantation, arrives in Ohio many of these feelings are stirred and a battle to let go of the past follows.

It was also turned into a movie in 1998 where Oprah Winfrey plays the main role of Sethe.

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This gave the book and the story a lot of coverage and introduced it to a big audience. Though in my opinion the book has enough power to do that all by itself. It takes a while to get used to the writing style of Morrison, as she writes very lyrical sentences, where it is not always clear if you are in the past, present or who is talking. But that also makes it magical. I would really recommend reading this!

What are you currently reading?